IPL 2018: Marquee Players list announced for the auction

With the much-anticipated IPL 2018 Player Auction list just around the corner, the list of 16 marquee players from India and overseas has been announced. Headlining the big pool of 578 players that will go under the hammer in Bengaluru on 27-28 January, 182 slots are up for grabs with 18 players retained during the Retention on January 4.

A total of 62 capped Indians and 298 uncapped Indian cricketers will vie for the available slots with 182 capped overseas cricketers, 34 uncapped overseas players and 2 cricketers from Associate Nations. With Rs. 2 crore as the highest reserve price, 36 players, including 13 Indians, have opted for the top bracket.

The Marquee Players include Ravichandran Ashwin, Gautam Gambhir, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane, Harbhajan Singh, Yuvraj Singh, Christopher Gayle, Ben Stokes, Kane Williamson, Glenn Maxwell, Joe Root, Mitchell Starc, Faf du Plessis, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and Shakib Hasan. They have all set their base price in between Rs 1 crore to 2 crore.

Murali Vijay, KL Rahul, Kedar Jadhav, Dinesh Karthik, Robin Uthappa, Yuzvendra Chahal and Karn Sharma have also set their base price at Rs 2 crore and will hope to attract high bids as the eight franchises look to build their teams for the upcoming seasons.

The 16 marquee players have been bracketed into M1 and M2 categories. Current India players Ashwin, Shikhar Dhawan, Ajinkya Rahane are in the top marquee list along with Stokes, who is again expected to trigger a bidding war. Currently, the world’s premier fast bowler Mitchell Starc and T20 match-winner Chris Gayle are also in the M1 category, so is Afghan sensation Rashid Khan and Australian dasher Chris Lynn is also in the Rs 2 crore bracket.

South African pace spearhead Kagiso Rabada is in the Rs 1.5 crore bracket while Brandon McCullum and Faf du Plessis are priced at Rs 2 crore and Chennai Super Kings have their Right to Match Cards (RTM). In all, there is 31 in the Rs 1 crore category followed by 23 in the Rs 75 lakh and a whopping 122 in the Rs 50 lakh base price bracket respectively. There are 62 capped Indian players in the auction while the number of uncapped local players is 288, as reported by iplt20.com.

Compared to Indians, the number of capped foreign internationals is 92 while 36 uncapped overseas talent have thrown their hat into the ring. Some of the big uncapped names are Krunal Pandya, U-19 sensations Prithvi Shaw and Kamlesh Nagarkoti.

Here’s the list of marquee players for the auction